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Stories: How come you walk funny

Film captures a year in the life of a kindergarten where able-bodied kids are immersed in a world of wheelchairs, walkers

Take an enriched, full-day kindergarten that brings learning to life through an onsite dinosaur dig, rainforest and milking farm. Add 21 four-to six-year olds, half of who use walkers, wheelchairs or splints. Season with devoted teachers and assistants, student interns, committed parents and a healthy mix of empathy and disability-awareness training. Place in a school for children with disabilities.

“What you have is the crucible of the very best elements possible to make integration work,” says Tina Hahn, director of How come you walk funny? – a documentary that chronicles one year in the life of Bloorview’s integrated kindergarten. The film – which aired on the Discovery Health Channel last month – set out to answer whether inclusion could work “in this perfect little classroom,” Tina says.

The one-hour documentary takes us into the lives of parents Alison Bowen and Cecilia Chan, who have enrolled their children in Bloorview’s “reverse-integration” kindergarten – one that invites able-bodied kids to attend a school for children with physical disabilities.

Because Alison has four-year-old twins – Mark with a disability and Douglas without – “the film became more of a universal exploration of what it takes to make integration work beyond the kindergarten program and in the community,” Tina says.
Filmmakers shot about 160 hours of footage in the school, on field trips, in children’s homes and at social events, such as birthday parties.

“One of the questions everyone asks is ‘Why would parents of able-bodied kids pay tuition to have them learn in a special-needs environment?’” Tina says.

While children with disabilities register through the publicly funded integrated education and therapy program at Bloorview, able-bodied children register through the Institute of Child Study at the University of Toronto – a partner in the program – and pay tuition. “The justification most of these parents gave for their child being there was that they wanted the program’s unique empathy and social-skills training,” Tina says.

In addition to disability awareness training – such as the opportunity for students to try out wheelchairs and walkers and brainstorm changes to gym and other activities that allow all children to participate – “the year ended with a four-month theme called “Friends are like Flowers,” Tina says. “You can get academics anywhere, but where is a class going to spend four months talking about what makes a good friend?” Tina says.

“A colleague suggested that if the class is about empathy and social skills then we had to have some footage of the kids being bad initially, to show how they improved during the year,” Tina says. “But it’s a testament to the teaching team that right from the start they established this environment of caring.”

While the program aims to promote inclusive behaviour in the able-bodied kids and self-advocacy skills in those with disabilities, Tina says that the filmmakers observed a powerful role-modelling between the older and younger children with disabilities. “They can see the next step, let’s say, in a child who was initially using a wheelchair and now uses a walker, or a child who used to use a walker and now uses canes. It helps them understand why they are doing all of those therapies and surgeries and gives them a path they can follow.”

Tina says the documentary will “break open the box” on creative, inexpensive teaching tools that foster inclusion of children with special needs. An example is giving a long, foam pool noodle to a child using a wheelchair so that the child can reach out to touch other children during a game of tag, “equalizing the play,” Tina says. The teachers role play scenarios and encourage their students to suggest modifications, then have the class reflect on what worked following an activity, “reinforcing the exercise so that they remember for next time,” Tina says.

The film includes candid interviews with parents in an attempt to “construct an empathy lesson for adults so that they don’t see this as just for families of kids with exceptionalities,” Tina says. “Hopefully a parent will see this documentary and think: ‘Oh, we’ve never invited that child with cerebral palsy in our son’s class to a birthday party. Maybe I should phone his mom to see what would be needed to make that happen.”

Tina plans to create a series of shorter, 20-minute segments that can be used to improve teacher training and inclusion in community schools.

An extended, feature-length version of the film was screened by families and school staff at The Regent last month, and a Toronto-based film festival has expressed interest in airing this version.

To be connected with expert sources, contact:

Louise Kinross, Manager, Communications
Tel: 416-424-3866
Pager: 416-589-8826
E-mail: media at bloorview dot ca

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